


should auld acquaintances be forgot

by havisham



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: (but just barely), (i am extremely sorry for the last tag), Awkward Conversations, Experimental Style, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 18:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3219740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Oonaseckar's prompt: <i>Laurie & Charles, post-war drink in a pub, "Why would you be surprised by the odd stray wife here and there?"</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	should auld acquaintances be forgot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oonaseckar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/gifts).



_Like seeing a ghost_ , Charles says, when he first sees Laurie again. His hands flutters like wings, a flash of gold in between them. _My dear, I'm sure I heard that you were dead._

Well, I'm not. 

Laurie finishes his drink and starts to get up. Charles glances downward, too polite to enquire, not polite enough to look away. _I am sorry. Let me buy you another drink._

No, I must be going. 

Laurie has letters to write, a manuscript to worry over like a dog with a dry bone. Ralph is still away. ~~Not dead, not dead, not dead.~~ Away and unable to write. It must be killing him, Laurie thinks, not to be able write. Or maybe he writes and he writes, and his letters rot away in the jungle heat. A letter that disappears as soon as it's written. 

_My dear,_ Charles says, distressed, forgotten. _I haven't seen you in so long._

You look so old, Charles means, and yes, Laurie agrees. Sometime he is surprised to look in the mirror and see his face, with new lines that appear on it every day. On his corners of his mouth especially, brackets that give him a permanent, sardonic look. (Which is not especially unfair.) 

Redheads never age well, didn't the saying go? 

But at least Charles is looking well. His dark hair is shot through with silver and he has not yet wholly lost the fine, aquiline beauty that once stopped strangers dead, before he spoke -- and broke the spell.

Well, perhaps he is a _little_ plump.

_You must come home with me for tea. It's not far --_

No, absolutely not. 

_But you must meet Cassandra, my wife_. Charles says her name with a queer look on his face, half worshipful, half-shamed. _She's the most extraordinary girl, sweetness itself, but_ \-- Charles chuckles, Laurie finds this irritating, as he does most things about Charles. (Now.) 

_She would love to meet you. All my friends adore her, you know._

I'm sorry, I really must go. And Laurie lies, makes up excuses (for his rudeness, that is), until Charles smiles and forgives him. _Goodbye, Laurie. It was so good to see you again._

Laurie hopes this is a permanent goodbye, but the next week he receives one of Charles' charming little notes (how Charles found the address of Laurie's temporary digs is a mystery) -- this time with a delicate addendum from the famed Cassandra, begging him to take tea with them soon. 

He thinks about ghosts, about unsent letters, about a future that you can never avoid. 

Then he gets drunk and forgets it all.

**Author's Note:**

> The name of Charles' wife is blatantly stolen from toujours_nigel.


End file.
